and they let me be part of the show...

This week is all about the upcoming rainy season: planting rice and helping the monks to prepare for Buddhist Lent, the time when the monks are confined to the temple for three months.

Some of the teachers and students from Dipangkorn went to a local agricultural school on Friday morning. There was song and dance, presentations by several schools. (Ours was best, but all were delightful!) Then the directors of three schools led the way into the prepared rice field--clay-based mud, very hard to walk in.

Once they'd thrown the symbolic first grains of rice (mixed with sand for easier handling), then it was fair game for the rest of the crowd to join in. I was given farmer clothes (which I get to keep!) and waterproof boots (gave those back), and students helped me make my way through the muck. I was afraid several times of an ignominious slurping dip under the mud.

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Then after a bath, I was costumed for the whole-school parade to our nearby temple, Wat SalaDaeng. On Thursday morning was a school-assembly ritual in which we ceremoniously poured melted wax into great candle-molds. The finished candles (gorgeous, and each about 3 feet tall) were placed on a decorative stand, and on Friday afternoon were joyfully brought to the temple. We then all paraded three times around the temple grounds, and finally entered the temple for a formal presentation of the candles to the monks. Lots of chanting and bowing, smiling monks and reverent students.

No classes at all for the whole day!